“So what the hell are they doing here?” Klye asked.
He had never seen a goblin before, though tales of their cruelty and treachery had survived the years. Like Arthur, Klye had always dismissed the goblin race as the stuff of stories and myth.
Looking down at the grotesque corpses with their spindly limbs and bald, skull-like heads, Klye couldn’t deny the proof. He didn’t know what the sudden appearance of the monsters portended, but it could be no coincidence he had crossed them twice in one week.
“The gods only know why they are here,” Ragellan said. “From what I remember of the histories, Capricon has been home to many different peoples over the ages. Perhaps they have been here all along.”
* * *
When the Stranger awoke, the sky outside his window was darkening with the promise of nightfall. He didn’t know what had interrupted his slumber until he heard the distinctive chime—muffled, to be sure—of the enchanted mirror. Carefully, he removed the talisman from its hiding place and prayed to his god that the wizard wasn’t near enough to detect his spell.
The Stranger brought the mirror up to his face, and instantly his human features were replaced by the face of a goblin. The creature favored the Stranger with a pointy-toothed smile. Immediately, the Stranger grew suspicious.
“What is wrong?” he demanded.
The goblin moved its mouth in an attempt to answer, but only after two false starts was he able to speak.
“We were unable to kill the rogue knights,” the goblin said and then hastily communicated what he had learned of the battle, concluding his tale with the fact that only seven warriors had returned to Port Town.
“You are useless,” the Stranger hissed, resisting the urge to shout. “Are you telling me you sent a brigade out into the open, and they failed to kill the band of Renegades?”
“You needn’t be concerned, n’Pruelta. The Renegades are in the middle of nowhere. I will order a counterattack—”
“No!” the Stranger shouted. “You will do nothing unless I command it. Do not send more warriors against the Renegades. You’ve wasted too many of your troops as it is. You will wait until the Renegades are far from where the battle occurred, and then you will burn the bodies of the dead, leaving no trace of them behind. Do you understand?”
“Yes, n’Pruelta.”
“Good.”
Resisting the urge to shatter the talisman against the wall, the Stranger swallowed his ire and returned the mirror to its hiding place under the floor. He paced back and forth. This matter with the rogue knights was getting out of hand.
When Ragellan and Horcalus had first fled the Citadel Dungeon, he hadn’t worried overmuch that they and the Renegades who had freed them would come forward with evidence against the Knighthood. After all, no Knight of Superius would believe the words of traitors.
When his agents had discovered that the rogue knights had gotten aboard a ship bound for Capricon, the Stranger began to worry that the former Commander of Fort Splendor had stumbled upon something.
Now he had to contend with the fact that an entire band of Renegades knew of the goblins hiding in Capricon. In all likelihood, neither the rogue knights nor their friends had unraveled the mystery of why the goblins were there, but he couldn’t afford to take chances. The situation in Capricon was too delicate to take any chances.
Upsinous willing, one of the three assassins he hired would kill them all.
* * *
Scout returned to the meadow and reported the good news—no sign of the monsters in the forest. When he heard Ragellan’s theory that the goblins might have been on the island all along, he thought back to everything his father had told him about Capricon’s history.
“I don’t ever remember hearing anything about goblins,” Scout said. “But that doesn’t mean that they weren’t here before the elves…or maybe they were here after the elves but before the dwarves. Or maybe—”
“Have you ever come across goblins before?” Klye asked. “Before the skirmish in the sewers, I mean.”
“Nope.” Scout bent down to retrieve one of Othello’s arrows from a goblin corpse. “If the goblins have been in Capricon all along, they’ve done a heck of a good job hiding it. I’ve been from one coast to the other more times than I can recall, and I don’t remember anyone saying anything about goblins.
“I hope Leslie’s all right,” he added. “If they came after us, they might do the same with her.”
The pirates joined the group then.
“We searched every damn one of ’em, and not a single coin,” Pistol muttered. “And other than a few daggers, their blades are too large and unwieldly to be useful.”
By the time Scout finished picking up as many of Othello’s arrows as he could find, Plake had still not woken up, and Horcalus continued to shiver despite the bedroll they had wrapped him in.
Othello returned to the meadow, carrying some herbs that looked like nothing more than grass to Scout. The forester told them that in order to concoct the tea for Horcalus, he would need a fire to brew it.
“We can’t stay here any longer,” Klye announced, shaking his head. “We’ll make a fire after we put some distance between us and Pillars.”
“I agree that we must be on our way,” Ragellan said, “but neither Plake nor Horcalus are fit to travel. Perhaps I should take them to Pillars and seek the villagers’ aid.”
“If the messengers from Port Town are still around, you and Horcalus would only be arrested again,” Klye argued.
Ragellan looked as though he would argue the point but merely sighed. “We will need to construct a litter for the wounded.”
“There’s no time. We’ll have to carry them.” Klye’s tone did not leave room for objections.
Before the melancholy crew began their hike anew, Klye introduced the newcomer, Lilac. Despite his obvious exhaustion, Klye volunteered to help Ragellan carry Horcalus through the woods. The pirates were in charge of transporting Plake, and since Scout was assigned to the vanguard and Othello to the rear, that left Lilac and Arthur with the task of carrying the supplies.
“This path will curve northward after a few more miles,” Scout told Klye. “I know of another trail, though, that will take us due east. We’ll reach the Temple of Mystel in about a day. I’ve been there before, Klye. The healers are really nice. They’ll help Horcalus and Plake and not ask for a thing in return. And you don’t have to worry about them reporting us to the Knights or anybody because the healers help anyone who comes to them looking for help.”
Klye did not answer immediately.
“When we reach the point where this path begins to turn to the north, we’ll stop and set up camp,” Klye said a few minutes later. “Maybe Othello can do something for Horcalus, and hopefully Plake will be awake by then. I don’t want to have to stop at the temple unless we have to.”
Scout shrugged. Klye was the boss, after all.
Passage VI
As the Renegades renewed their hike, Dark Lily had no fear of being detected by the man in the black hood who led the way or the archer, who kept watch from the rear. She wasn’t sneaking around the woods; the wizardess walked among them.
She was disappointed only two of the Renegades had been seriously injured in the fray. The goblins might have taken out a few more, leaving fewer opponents for her to worry about when she made her move against Ragellan and Horcalus. But she was not overly concerned.
In fact, if she weren’t so exhausted, she might have revealed herself right then and there, destroying the motley band with a tempest of lightning and fire. Or not…
Over the years, Dark Lily had learned to wait for the right moment to strike. She was not currently at her best, and the Renegades had proven their mettle against the goblins. Even if she were at full strength, one of the archer’s arrows or the hooded man’s knife could find its way into her heart. She was outnumbered and possibly outmatched.
She decided to wait until the advantage was hers and cursed herse
lf for a fool for considering doing otherwise. She mustn’t be too eager to reap her reward. The goblins might well return to finish the Renegades off, or maybe they would encounter another foe on their merry little trek to Fort Faith. They were outlaws, after all.
Dark Lily would pick her moment carefully, and in the meantime, she would learn all she could about their weaknesses.
* * *
They were forced to stop once the sun had fully set. Klye estimated they had covered less than ten miles. While he would have preferred to put even more space between them and the bloody meadow, walking long into the night if need be, it just wasn’t possible. It was a small miracle that they had made it this far.
Scout led them a little way off the road to a place flanked by a copse of pines. By the time Klye and Ragellan lowered Horcalus to the ground and wrapped him in a bedroll, Klye’s arms were trembling from the strain of the knight’s weight. The pirates placed Plake near Horcalus, and Othello began searching the area for firewood. Without being asked, Arthur joined the archer in his quest.
Horcalus’s condition had not improved. He continued to twitch and moan, haunted alternately by fever and chills. Plake had awoken once during the hike, but the rancher had immediately passed out again. His heartbeat was strong, however, and his breathing, regular. When Othello and Arthur returned to the cramped campsite, the archer wasted no time in starting a fire.
Everyone was spent. They were bruised and battered, but above these discomforts, Klye felt a ravenous hunger well up from his empty stomach. When Lilac volunteered to take Othello’s bow to hunt for their supper, the pirates heartily approved the plan. Klye would rather have had Othello, a proven marksman, take her place, but the archer was the only one who knew how to make the fever-breaking concoction. Othello handed his longbow and the quiver of green-fletched arrows to Lilac.
“It’ll have to be a small fire,” Scout said, as Othello struck a bit of flint against the steel of his hunting knife. “Fort Miloásterôn is only a few miles to the north of here, and the road that connects the fort to the Temple of Mystel is not far ahead. A lot of smoke and light will bring the Knights to us quicker than a hound to dropped table scraps.”
By the time he was finished, Othello had produced a modest flame with very little smoke. Next, he busied himself with cutting up the herb-grass and placing the small bits of green into a canteen.
As Othello prepared the tea that would hopefully cure Horcalus’s ailment, Scout hummed a tuneless ditty and added twigs to the fire at random intervals. Crooker and Pistol stared glumly into the flames while Ragellan used what little water they had left to moisten the rag for Horcalus’s brow. Klye joined the pirates in gazing into the crackling fire, finding some relaxation in its hypnotic dance.
* * *
From behind a wall of pines, Dark Lily spied upon the Renegades but quickly grew bored with their inactivity. She was as tired as any of them and arguably hungrier. She knew nothing of hunting. Honing the craft of wizardry occupied almost all of her time, and so Dark Lily had never bothered with fishing or trapping, depending on her magic to earn coin for her next meal.
The assassin was far too weary to go traipsing through the woods, looking for game, and she doubted she had the strength left to toss even a small fireball at an unsuspecting hare. There was always the wand she had stolen off the body of the old mage, but a single blast from that talisman would likely splatter any potential meal across the forest floor.
And so she resigned herself to fast for the night. Like the Renegades, she would go without. After a good night’s sleep, she would regain much of her strength, and gods willing, the morrow would provide an opportunity to complete her mission. Then she could feast on whatever she desired at the best establishment in Superius.
Her thoughts drifting once more to the spell book of Braiseph Harrow, Dark Lily wandered farther from the Renegades’ camp. She knew she had become obsessed with the tome but didn’t care. It was the discovery of a lifetime, and—
She stopped suddenly. Movement out of the corner of her eye had drawn her from her fantasies. Enshrouded in an incantation of invisibility, the woman moved as quietly as she could toward whatever had attracted her attention. As she squeezed between the trunks of the conifers, she realized she was heading back in the direction from whence she and the Renegades had come.
A figure clad entirely in some drab color that might have been gray but in the darkness, appeared as dark as the wizardess’s own robe.
A jolt of fear coursed through her, knotting her stomach and bringing a most unwomanly curse to her lips. If she were to come face to face with another assassin—spell-caster or otherwise—she knew she would lose. Even a drunken gnome could have defeated her in her present condition.
Frozen in alarm and not wanting to alert the stalker to her presence by making any movement whatsoever, she could only stare as the shadowy figure paused to crouch down and study the trail at his feet. His head and face were completely covered by a mask that bore but a thin slit through which the man peered, first to the left, then the right. After another quick glance behind him, he renewed his purposeful pace in the direction of the Renegade camp.
Dark Lily let out a sigh of relief. A fellow magus might have sensed the powerful enchantment that made her as transparent as the air—though not necessarily. Nevertheless, she was almost certain the man wasn’t a wizard because she thought she recognized his garb, not to mention how gracefully he moved through the woods.
By nature, assassins tended to be loners, though Dark Lily had heard of organizations that worked like guilds, training promising recruits and assigning the work in the most appropriate manner. The individual received a set wage for his services, and the guild as a whole took a percentage of the pay for the whole group. It was a sensible way to make a living, Dark Lily supposed, though she would never consider dividing her spoils with anyone.
This stealthy assassin whom she now followed—at a safe distance, despite her invisibility spell—was a sai-morí, a sect of professional killers born, bred, and trained in Huiyah. They were rumored to be the best of the best and were commonly hired to fight Huiyah’s secret clan wars, perpetuating blood feuds that had existed in that nation for centuries.
Sometimes, when the profit was great enough, sai-morí could be persuaded to take jobs outside of their country…
Dark Lily didn’t doubt the truth of their reputation. During her days as an apprentice, a sai-morí had been hired to steal into the tower she called home and murder her teacher. The assassin had nearly succeeded, and only with her help had the master magus stopped the sai-morí’s deadly work. She remembered being intrigued by the concept of getting paid a small fortune to do something as simple as kill another person.
Perhaps she owed her path in life to that unsuccessful sai-morí—at least in part—but whatever the Stranger had promised her newest rival, she had no intention of allowing this sai-morí to collect his reward.
* * *
Crooker was already lying on his back with his eyes closed, so Pistol thought very little of it when the pirate twitched, figuring his friend was reacting to a dream. But when Scout, who had been standing nearby, pitched forward and almost landed on the fire, the former pirate king knew something was amiss.
Drawing the sword he had taken from one of Port Town’s prison guards, a curve-bladed weapon not so unlike the old cutlass he had lost at Oars and Omens, Pistol sprang to his feet and kicked Crooker none too gently with his boot.
Crooker didn’t move.
“We’re under attack!” Pistol shouted.
Klye dragged Scout away from the flames and removed a tiny dart from the unconscious man’s neck.
“Now what?” Klye demanded, turning around in a circle and glaring at the trees surrounding them. “What do you want from us?”
His answer came in the form of another dart, which narrowly missed his face as it flew past. By this time Ragellan, Othello, and Arthur, were on their feet with weapons drawn, faci
ng the direction from which the last tiny missile had emerged.
“Gods damn you,” Klye spat and charged into the woods.
Pistol was right behind him, eager to cut down this new enemy—whoever it happened to be. For all he knew, Crooker was dead.
Crooker, the only one of his men who had stayed behind in Port Town in the hopes of rescuing him.
Crooker, a brother-in-arms since his early days of pirating and the only man Pistol had ever implicitly trusted with his life.
Crooker, his only friend in all of Altaerra.
Expecting to find the campsite surrounded by an army, Pistol was surprised to see a single person darting through the trees, away from the edge of the camp. Klye stopped and looked around, no doubt searching for other foes, but Pistol kept on running toward the retreating figure.
“Pistol, stop,” Klye called. “He’s alone!”
But Pistol didn’t stop. He wanted to paint the forest red with the blood of the man who had dispatched Crooker in such a cowardly manner.
“Come back!” Klye yelled. “He’s trying to separate the group!”
Pistol ignored him, and if Klye made any further attempts to call him back, he didn’t hear them. A glance over his shoulder revealed that the Renegade Leader was not following, and he figured Klye had headed back to camp. Pistol didn’t care. He would take down the bastard by himself.
“Yer a quick one. I’ll grant you that,” he muttered. It was all he could do to keep up with his prey, who moved through the darkened forest as though it were day. Soon Pistol lost sight of him and stopped, breathing heavily and looking around for clues.
He heard an unusual sound, something cutting through the air at a great speed, and was nearly knocked to the ground when something struck him in his shoulder. Pistol fell to one knee, sparing a quick glance down at his shoulder. A star-shaped blade protruded from his flesh. He pulled out the strange weapon, cutting his thumb in the process. Every point of the star was razor sharp.
Rebels and Fools (The Renegade Chronicles Book 1) Page 21
